TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

I-275 Work To Shut Ramp At Himes Ave. Until Spring

ADVERTISEMENT

By RICH SHOPES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 1, 2008

The Interstate 275 reconstruction project is set to take a turn this morning: Workers plan to shut down the Himes Avenue northbound entrance ramp.

The closing, expected after the morning rush hour, will last until spring.

Motorists, meanwhile, will be able to access northbound I-275 at Dale Mabry Highway and Howard Avenue.

The southbound exit ramp at Himes will not be affected.

Workers are planning to lengthen the Himes ramp to give vehicles more room to merge.

On a related note, work on the Ashley Drive exit, about a mile east of Himes, will finish in about a month.

Rolling With The Changes

I've heard about these but never experienced one - that odd traffic phenomenon called the rolling road block.

One is planned for this week. It's set for midnight to 4 a.m. Thursday on northbound I-275.

Police will assemble on the Pinellas County side of the Howard Frankland Bridge and slowly proceed north, not allowing the traffic behind them to pass. The road block will give workers enough time to hoist a massive electronic billboard over the highway near the Ashley Drive exit.

Limiting traffic to 10 mph will give the workers about 20 traffic-free minutes to get the job done.

"Either we stop the traffic entirely or we slow it down," said John McShaffrey, spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation.

The consensus was that slowing it down would be easier on drivers' nerves.

Repaving In Ruskin

Motorists in Ruskin will need patience on Gulf City Road between U.S. 41 and Cockroach Bay Road.

The county is planning to repave both sides of the road starting this morning. That will mean alternating lane closures with flagmen. The repaving will last through Thursday.

Buy Gas, Fix Roads

The U.S. Department of Transportation is in quandary: Gas taxes help pay for road and bridge repairs, yet high gas prices for most of the year caused Americans to drive less, which in turn has meant less tax revenue.

Americans drove 90 billion fewer miles in fiscal 2008. Taxes, meanwhile, took a $3 billion nosedive, to $31 billion. September was especially tough. Gas prices ebbed that month but Americans were still in a conservative-driving mode. They cut their driving by 4.4 percent, or 10.7 billion miles. That was the largest September drop since Sept. 11, 2001.

Gandy Not Seeing The Light

Carol Buckingham of Port Tampa recently asked why the light cycles are short for streets that cross Gandy Boulevard, which is under construction.

"It takes forever for us to get across Gandy. Someone needs to fix the timing on those lights," she said.

I can sympathize. The DOT says the short light cycles will stay that way for about a year.

Toward the end of the project, the department will install traffic sensing devices and new timers. All of the traffic management equipment will then be turned over to the city.

"Because of the construction we want to keep traffic moving on Gandy," DOT spokeswoman Marian Scorza said.

Got a traffic gripe? Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633 or at rshopes@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT